The Birmingham office of law firm, Cobbetts LLP, has warned businesses in the region of the rise in cybercrime in the UK, which amounted to a staggering £27 billion last year.

The cost to business during 2011 was over £21 billion. Of this amount £9.2 billion resulted from the theft of intellectual property and £7.6 billion from industrial espionage. 65 per cent of all information theft is linked to an existing or former employee of a business.

In response to the hefty figures, Cobbetts has produced a document outlining the major risks organisations should be aware of, including cloudcomputing, social networking platforms, information theft, email scams, andcorporate hijacking.

Corporate hijacking is one of the greatest emerging threats, and canresult in an organisation's corporate identity being replicated, including the mimicking logos, letterheads, websites and creation of fictional bank statements.

Arun Chauhan, director of Fraud and Risk at Cobbetts LLP, commented: "It is more important than ever for businesses to understand the major threats involved with cybercrime. The key to all these risks is effective management of internal policies and procedures."

He continued: "Initially, you should consider undertaking a risk assessment to evaluate your company's potential exposure to cybercrime. Once completed, all your employees should be appropriately informed about the key threats and policies and procedures implemented to safeguard them from exposing themselves or the organisation. It is important to ensure there is segregation of duties in the IT department, staff should be fully aware of how they should be using the internet and emails and the risks involved with releasing sensitive information outside of work. Businesses should also monitor any information that is accessible to data suppliers and third parties."

For more information about Cobbetts, please visit their website here: www.cobbetts.com